Selecting a caravan dealer.
On Saturday I visited a Bailey retailer just to se if I could be tempted by any end of season offers. I had never really given the Orion much attention so my wife and I decided to take a look.
We only needed a cursory look for a couple of minutes. This time spent in the 'van told us all we needed to know both about the Orion, the dealer and possibly Bailey.
We only looked at the shower compartment plus a quick look at the finish in general.
The shower was finished in what I would call "spare silicone" . This had been added, as decoration maybe, during assembly. This silicone had clearly been ignored by whatever Bailey call their pre-delivery checks and by the retailer. The shower compartment also contained a good deal of polystyrene beads plus other small pieces of black plastic. The black plastic theme was then continued into the lounge area where significant anounts could be clearly seen on the floor area.
I looked upwards to take a look at the roof light. It was certainly there however the surround was clearly attempting to part company with it as evidenced by the large sine-wave type ripples in the ceiling finish.
We had no need to look any further as the state of the caravan told us all we needed to know about this particular retailer. This caravan was on sale and was unused. I had some concerns......why wouldn't the dealer spend two minutes with a small vacuum cleaner to get rid of the polystyene and black plastic. Why wouldn't he clean the spare sealant off the walls of the shower? Why not put the 'van in for repair and fix the ceiling......surely found when he received the caravan?
Finally, I asked as to whether or not Bailey used marine ply in their floor construction. He gave a very uncertain answer .......no mention of "I could find out".
So, a retailer eliminated even before talking money and he doesn't even realise that he had just lost a potential customer.
As for Bailey, how a caravan can escape from Bristol in such a poor state of finish concerns me.